


Mushing Through the Snow

by Fictropes



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Snow dogs - Freeform, Strangers to Lovers, you know that movie snow dogs? well dan and Phil are mushers and that's the plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:40:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28299114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fictropes/pseuds/Fictropes
Summary: It’s just them now, and Dan’s dogs, still hanging outside in the blizzard.
Relationships: Dan Howell/Phil Lester
Comments: 26
Kudos: 51





	Mushing Through the Snow

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sierraadeux](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sierraadeux/gifts).



> hey sierra i said u deserve snow dogs. also i stole your own buffy idea for this so erm yeah soz. 
> 
> all knowledge is from the movie snow dogs i watched as a child like 77 times

It’s snowing, which, obvious—it’s Alaska in the middle of winter. But this is a _different_ sort of snow, coming down in sheets, nothing visible but white and his own limp fringe hanging down his forehead. Dan can just about see the dogs right in front of him, the ones at the front of the pack could’ve fucking legged it. Could be in a log cabin drinking tea directly from a dog bowl for all he knows.

He needs to stop—stop before he accidentally guides them all straight off a mountain. It’s easier said than done though, the nearest town is still miles away and he can hardly jump off here. Park himself in the snow until he becomes a human ice sculpture, a less buff Captain America that people dig up in three hundred years time. 

But he needs to do something. It’s getting dangerous, but everyone had known that. Half the people had dropped out of today’s race, taken one look at how heavy it was coming down and dipped straight inside the little cafe—hot chocolate, hot food, just _hot._ Dan could really do with some of that now, someone to come along and inject molten lava right into his veins. 

It’s just—him. He’s overly competitive, overly invested in this whole Dog Racing business. Or mushing. Or whatever you want to call it. He just thinks the dogs do most of the work, that it should be called dog _something,_ cos they’re the ones literally running through the snow. They’re the ones getting pissed wet through whilst Dan hangs back—only get a little bit pelted in the face by the blizzard. 

People have laughed at him before, when he forgot to name it officially—instead announced he was there for the _dog race._ Now he’s learnt to only call it that in his own head, and in front of his twelve best friends. Dan thinks they, at least, appreciate it—the acknowledgement for all their hard work. 

Now he's in a dog race, but a little bit of an evil dog race. He can’t quite work out whether turning around is the best idea, can’t remember how far he’s come and how far he has left. He thinks crossing the finish line in reverse probably won’t win him any prizes, that trying to turn around in this is probably the worst option out of the two. 

Dan doesn’t turn, just keeps going straight ahead. Narrows his eyes because that’s what people who forget their glasses do, tell him that squinting helps—it fucking does not. He can see even less, sure his eyelashes are frozen and currently doing a great job at stabbing him directly in the eyeball. He thinks he’s forgotten what it feels like to be warm.

He’s going to have to stop, just chill in the snow until someone finds him via helicopter— or whatever. Not that he’s seen anything overhead, unless you count the bird that shat on him about an hour ago—it’s on his shoulder, frozen solid—he counts it. 

It’s thirty five minutes later when he finds solace, when he catches sight of a small opening on the side of a large mountain. It’s gotta be a cave—this has got to be a Disney movie. Right now he doesn’t give a shit what it is, just knows the snow can’t get him whilst he’s locked away in there. 

Maybe it’ll be his lucky day, it’ll be a portal to a place with fucking central heating—with a hot tub big enough for him to just float in. He thinks his blood is frozen solid, that if you touch him he’d fall apart—crack into tiny little pieces. He also thinks he has a penchant for the dramatics, but that’s neither here nor there. 

He politely asks his dogs to change course, to veer of to the left and closer to—potential—safety. For all he knows he’s invading the territory of a polar bear, a lion, a goddamn eldritch creature who wants to wear his skin so it can go out shopping for people things. Dan thinks if he lived in a cave he’d want people things, want a towel and a chopping board for making—soup, maybe. 

God. He wants soup.

It’s as he gets closer he realises that no—no creatures, no polar bears—just a competitor who had the same idea. A competitor who was apparently out in front, beating Dan—Dan who'd convinced himself he was in first place. It’s a bit of a kick to the frozen face, to know that he’s failed twice up to now—he can’t go on, has already been beaten. 

If it were any other day, if his eyebrows weren’t frozen solid, if his dick hadn’t shrivelled up and made a home inside him, then he might’ve carried on—tried to find another secret cave. But today is today, and today is fucking awful. 

So he goes for it, gets closer and closer until the other person’s dogs start to take notice. Start to perk up at the idea of company. His dogs are actually—good, behaved, normal little dudes. They don’t go insane like Dan was expecting, because they like to do that. Not when they’re racing, but just when they see dogs out in the wild, when they think it’s play time.

The other dogs bark and bark, until a man comes running out to see what the commotion is. 

“Hey! Calm down, I have treats, you like treats, yeah?” 

  
  
And they do, cos they quiet down. They turn away from Dan and all crowd around this dude who is frantically digging through his pockets trying to find the promise. 

He takes that moment to quietly ease in, to stop beside the entrance, to listen as this man tries to get them all to sit—to take it in turns.

“Buffy, oh my god, why is it always you? You’ve had, like, seven treats already!” He’s whining, and it’s a bit funny—enough to make Dan snort behind his hood. 

And that’s a mistake because now he’s managed to get everyone’s attention, has a man and twelve new dogs looking at him. 

“Er—hi.” He lifts a hand, gives a little wave. “Sorry for interrupting.” 

The other man looks shocked for a moment, but then—Buffy, Dan assumes—rips the treat out of his hand. 

“Oi! No, that’s illegal. You just stole your brother’s treat, give it back to Angel.” He demands, but it’s pointless because he is definitely not being listened to. 

“Are— you named them all after Buffy characters?” Dan asks, even though he already knows. 

He gets a stilted silence in response, a little delicate shoulder shrug— a screwed up face that’s honestly sort of cute. “Maybe.” 

“Maybe.” Dan laughs, hops down off his sled so he can go toward the warmth. The warmth being the cave—not the man, maybe not the man, a bit the man. “Is it cozy in there?”

“In… the cave? The cave of nightmares and— probably murder?” 

“Murder? You gonna murder me in there?”

  
  
“No!” The man shakes his head a bit too vigorously, enough to send his hood right down and reveal a quiff that looks a bit sad— a bit squished. “I was more suggesting you… murder me.”

  
  
“You want me to murder you?” Dan asks, tries to keep the cheek out of his voice but misses. 

“No!” He repeats, looks about two seconds away from stamping his feet in the snow—throwing a tantrum bigger than Alaska has ever seen before. “I’m saying you give of murder vibes.”

“Right, yeah.” Dan agrees, just to see this dudes eyes go as wide as saucers—to see him take an ungraceful step back into the murder cave. “I got twelve dogs, trained for years, entered a race on the off chance I could murder a man. How’d you know?”

He seems to catch on then, his face settles into amusement rather than full blown fear. “I am not murder-able.”

“No?” Dan would raise an eyebrow, but he’s pretty sure they’re still frozen solid. “Wanna see?”

“I’d like to see you try, Mr Poo Shoulder.” 

  
  
And he doesn’t know why it makes him laugh, but it does. Makes him properly laugh, more than he can remember laughing in ages. That sort of head thrown back, makes your ribs hurt sort of laugh. It takes him a minute to recover, and when he does he comes face to face with a smile that makes his heart flip. 

He’s handsome—shit, he’s really fucking handsome. Dan’s close enough to see through the snow now, to see all that pretty up close. 

“Dan.” He blurts. “Erm—yeah, Dan. Not Mr Poo Shoulder.” 

“Phil, or as i’m more formally known, Mr Poo Free shoulder.” 

“Stop saying poo shoulder.”

  
  
“Or what?”

  
  
“I’ll murder you in the murder cave.”

Phil lets out a little noise, a little _ekkkk._ Holds his hands up in mock surrender, looks to immediately regret it when the dogs go wild once more—assume he’s holding treats out of their reach. 

“No! Guys, guys. You’re embarrassing me in front of the competition.” He gently eases them down, with promises of sausages that he definitely doesn’t have—or at least Dan hopes he doesn’t have. 

Dan just watches, watches on in amusement as they all perk up and start to circle him, sniff at the pockets on his massive coat. Dan thinks he’d probably be the same, if he was allowed, circling him—checking him out—sniffing, _maybe._

He does— have sausages. Pulls these tiny little cocktail things out of his pocket and feeds them all one each with a whispered promise of that being it. Apparently they get it this time, sausages must be a regular last meal sort of thing the Phil household. They all leave him, retreat into the cave to dry off—to potentially raid a rucksack for more food.

It’s just them now, and Dan’s dogs, still hanging outside in the blizzard. 

“So.”

  
  
“So what?” Phil asks, looks at Dan like he might be a little bit stupid for not just—moving.

“Can I come in?”  


“Are you a vampire, or something? It’s not my cave, just go in.”

Dan does feel a bit stupid now, asking for an invite into a cave that’s quite literally free real estate. “Is it dark?”

  
  
“No, started a fire.”

  
  
“You started a fire?”

  
  
“I mean—my lighter that I had started a fire, I can’t do the whole grrrr me rub sticks together thing.” Phil admits, looks sad about it. He’s got a nice mouth, even if it currently is all pouty. 

“I can’t do that either, if it makes you feel better.”

-

The cave is actually kinda fucking massive, great acoustics, excellent vibes—the perfect air bnb for someone with a snow and wet rocks kink. 

“I didn’t actually think the snow would get inside.”

“Of course the snow gets inside, Dan.” Phil rolls his eyes, but he laughs afterwards—can’t keep the act up for even a second. “Same I stepped inside and screamed cos I thought i’d, like, stepped inside a swamp.”

“You trying to invade Shrek’s territory?” Dan brushes down his pants, tries to get off all the snow so they have a chance to dry. It’s probably no use, probably be best stripping off completely and holding them over the flame—but that’s weird, so he doesn’t do that. “Then it really would be all _ogre_ for you.” 

Phil turns, stares at him with complete and utter disdain—it’s hot, honestly. Dan doesn’t know if his brain is simply frozen stupid, or if he’s genuinely developing a crush on a guy who he met two minutes ago— who’s only spoken to him about poo and murder.

“I am uninviting you to my murder cave, please go turn into a human icicle.” 

“That was good! It was witty.”

“It must have been love, but it’s ogre now.”

“Are you saying we were in love?” Dan asks, and he’s sort of into the idea—actually. Of this being a hallmark romance movie, he falls in love in a snow storm and gets married one week into the relationship. Maybe that _should_ be his life, maybe he deserves it after many sad nights of fucking his own hand. 

“We could have a team of twenty four whole dogs, that’d be pretty cool.” Phil smiles, doesn’t seem to object to Dan’s new life plan of marrying him next Sunday. He even goes as far as inviting him closer, patting the little rock beside him—even brushes the snow off the top.

“I think that’s actually illegal—like, sixteen is the max.”

  
  
“Why are you ruining my dreams? I let you into my secret hole and—“

It’s an unfinished sentence, cos Dan is laughing too much to hear the rest of it. 

“Secret hole!” He squeals, and when Phil _finally_ gets it he joins in. 

He’s got— his laugh is hard to ignore, to not join in with. He stops three times, but the minute Phil starts up again Dan is straight back in hysterics, straight back to clutching his stomach. It’s one of those moments, like at school when you catch your friends eye and for some reason you start all over again. He’s half expecting a teacher to march up behind them, kick them back out into the blizzard together. 

“Stop it, stop it. God.” 

“M stopping.” Phil promises, tips into Dan’s sides, all elbows and too much force. It nearly sends him sideways, but he saves himself. Or doesn’t save himself at all, because maybe having this guys squashed up against him is an even worse fate. 

It’s actually—good, nice, all the other words that mean the same thing. It offers all the warmth Dan had been missing outside, he wants to suggest they stay like this—but more. Wants to suggest they huddle together for warmth. 

“You’re so warm.” Phil whispers, like he’s just gone ahead and read Dan’s mind. “No wonder all your dogs listened to you, probably like all these warm vibes you give off.”

It really does something. Makes him feel too much. Makes him wonder if he’s been alone for too long. His dogs are—great, really fucking great. He wouldn’t give them up for the world, but they can’t say things like that, can’t make his heart do a funny little flip.

Phil stays, and Dan does the more he was imagining. Wraps an arm around his shoulder, tugs him in even closer and _leaches_ —warmth, comfort, all the stuff he’s been missing for years. 

“My dogs listen to me cos they know I am in charge of the food.” 

“What’re they called?” Phil asks, hand dropping down to rest just above Dan’s knee—nothing explicit about it, but it still feels like a lot. 

“They—erm.” 

“Erm?”

  
  
“Don’t laugh.” 

“I won’t laugh.” Phil promises, squeezes his thigh for that added assurance. “Mine are literally all named after Buffy characters, so.” 

“They’re all called Phil.”

“Oh, shutup!” Phil yells, shoves him again—catches him before he falls. “Tell me their actual names.” 

They’re basically cuddling now, the dogs gathered around looking like they might want to join in. But then one of them manages to get into Phil’s backpack and it’s a free for all, Dan notices—Phil does not. 

“Erm—“ He starts, but then he decides the dogs are all too good to not be allowed to steal Phil’s bag of treats. “They’re all months. So, you know, twelve months… twelve dogs.” 

“Oh! Clever. Easy to remember.” 

“Thanks, i’m really big brained.” Dan teases, but Phil doesn’t even seem to think it’s a joke—just hums in agreement.

“Do you live close enough to get home? If the snow stops?” 

“Yeah, live just on the outskirts of the town we started in.” Dan finds himself wanting to stay here for a little while longer, gives them an excuse to keep speaking—to not have to go home to all that empty, to no one saying hello. 

“Oh! Same. No way. I thought I was the only person out there. I don’t see anyone apart from this old woman who keeps trying to set me up with her granddaughter who’s literally twenty years older than me.” 

“Nice.”

“And, like, even if she was my age, i’m gay, so.” 

“Nice.” Dan repeats, but this time he properly means it. This time it means nice, _I might have a chance to woo you with my ogre puns and limp fringe._ “We are the only gays on the mountain.” 

“You’re gay?” Phil asks, properly perked up like Dan’s offered him a special treat from his pocket. “I thought—wow, I thought I was the only gay in the mountain.”

“In the mountain?”

“We are in the mountain!” Phil argues. “Literally right now we are inside the mountain.”

  
  
“Oh?” Dan does raise an eyebrow this time, fully unfrozen. “Does the mountain like it?”

“The mountain loves it.” 

-

“Five years?”

  
  
“Yeah.” Dan nods, they’ve ended up on the floor—still wrapped up in each-other—backs pressed up against the rocks. “I still don’t even know how, just really obsessed with the movie snow dogs as a kid. Got one husky, ended up with eleven more and here we are.”

It’s been an hour, maybe two, Dan doesn’t know anymore. Time seems different here, slow but fast all at the same time. It’s still snowing, still just as hard as it had been when Dan decided to take a break. The light outside hasn’t really shifted, isn’t giving much away, the only thing giving anything away is Dan—Dan and his too obvious, Dan and his face that tells you everything. 

“I came here on holiday with my brother and his girlfriend, did this like whacky adventure trail which involved sledding. Left for a month, came back, and here i’ve been for seven years.”

“Seven years? How’ve we never met before?” Dan’s sure he would’ve noticed him, sure he couldn’t forget that face once he’d seen it. 

“It must be because I’m always out in front, you never get to see me because you’re always eating my dust… or snow. Eat my snow.” Phil cheers _himself,_ does a stupid little fist pump mid air that Dan shouldn’t find as endearing as he does. 

“You’re fucking weird, d’ya know that?” 

“Yeah, but you like it. Haven’t even tried to murder me once yet.”

And it’s supposed to be funny, Dan thinks, but he does like it. Likes that for the first time, in a long time, he feels like himself. 

“I think we might actually have to live here together, so, best not to murder my getting out to gather supplies companion.” Dan tips his head towards the snow that’s still showing no signs of stopping, then braves it by tipping his head to the side, cheek pressed against Phil’s hair—it’s soft, stupidly soft. 

“We could make it nice, put down a little rug.” 

“A wet rug?” 

  
  
“Well, no.” Phil frowns, at least it sounds like he’s frowning. “It would be, like, dry when we put it down and… we’d sweep the snow.” 

“We’d have one dry patch with a rug and the rest of the cave is still covered? We sleeping on the rug?” Dan asks, wipes away a patch of snow with the toe of his boot. “Ugh, that was so much work and I got rid of like… one inch.” 

“You are one inch.”

  
  
“Oi!” Dan objects, even though he didn’t mean it like that. “I resent that. It’s cold in here, i’m usually bigger.” 

It takes Phil a second to catch on, and when he does he jostles Dan until—until Dan has no choice to retaliate. Until they’re play fighting on a snowy floor in front of an audience of twenty-four huskies. 

It happens like an actual hallmark movie. They’re rolling about until they’re not, until Phil is hovering over Dan with a look on his face that means they’re probably about to kiss— or something. 

“Illegal that I find my number one competitor too goddamn pretty for his own good.” He’s whining, but it doesn’t take away from the compliment— doesn’t take away from the fact Dan’s cheeks are red from something other than the cold.

“Is this your opening line to murder? Or for kissing?”

  
  
“For kissing.” Phil clarifies. “But only if you want to be kissed.”

Dan pretends to think about it, but only for a second because the temptation is too much— the promise of a kiss that might make him feel _something._ “My lips are chapped, just so you know in advance.”

“My breath probably, like, smells of sausage cos I was eating them out of my special pocket. Just… in advance.” 

It makes Dan giggle, makes him feel breathless—makes him feel on top of the world. And it shouldn’t, cos it’s weird, cos this is all cliché and maybe he’s dreaming it up. Maybe he knocked himself out out there in the snow, dreamt up a scenario where he meets his dream man in a dank cave. 

But that’s alright, Dan can go along with it, even if he does wake up in a few hours Phil-less. 

“Your special sausage pocket?”

“For me and the dogs.”

“Phil.”

  
  
“Mhm?”

“Just kiss me.”

So he does, he leans in and it’s—cold. It’s fucking freezing. Phil’s finger tips against his face are like ice, so Dan’s hands fly up to warm them, cling onto them and hold them there. It’s mind-blowing, even though it shouldn’t be, even though the angle is awkward and Phil’s knee is digging into the soft part of his thigh in a way that hurts. 

Their coats are so puffy it’s really preventing touching, and all Dan wants to do is slip his hand beneath Phil’s shirt—to warm him all over. Wants to touch just to convince himself that this might be real, that for once he’s actually allowed something good. 

He doesn’t want it to end. Doesn’t want to go back out there into the real world. Give up the idea of a cave with a wet rug, with living with Phil and their pack of twenty four dogs. Taking turns to go out into the wild in the hopes of finding some abandoned chocolate in the snow—or something like that. 

Phil ends it, pulls away with flushed cheeks and a stupid smile. Lean in again for another, then another, then another.

  
  
“Hmpff, gonna bruise me you keep going in that hard.” Dan teases, hand coming up to cradle the back of his head—only place he can get to, only way he can hold. “Do it again.”

“Did not expect to be making out in a murder cave with Mr Poo Shoulder today.” 

“Are you going to call me that forever?” Dan asks, cranes his neck just so he can kiss him again—scared about stopping, scared him might vanish into thin air. 

“Yeah, suits you.” 

-

It stops, eventually. Another couple of hours, another few—or many—kisses. Too long learning about each others dogs, their exact names. 

They got along, the two packs. End up in this great fur heap in the corner of the cave, tangled up so much Dan half believes they’ve turned into one. They’ll win all future races with their great 1 _6 ft Massive Unit Dog._

“I think October and Angel are in big gay love.”

“Should we have a gay dog wedding?” Dan asks, packing up the mess all the dogs had made together. Because Phil had noticed, after a while, that he’d been stolen from. When Dan admitted to be a secret accomplice, he’d been told he was in charge of the cleaning up. 

“Obviously we should have a gay dog wedding.”

“So—if our dogs are gay married, we have to see each other again, yeah?” Dan feels vulnerable, allows himself to feel it— to give into it for once. He’s half scared Phil is going to say no, say he had making out in a cave on his bucket list. 

“Of course we’re going to see each other again. Have to take you to my favourite cafe for hot chocolate and muffins.” 

Something loud inside of Dan settles down then, happy and content—finally. “And I have to show you my dog calendar, got it specially made. All the dogs have a photo with their right month.” 

“Ok, so we have to head straight back there after this race? Got it.” Phil crouches down, helps Dan with the last of the stuff—maybe kisses him again.

  
  
“Yeah-huh.” Dan smiles, right against Phil’s mouth. “We cross the finish line together?” 

  
  
“I don’t control the dogs, Dan.”

**Author's Note:**

> [if u wanna rebloggy on tumblr I always appreciate it!](https://fictropes.tumblr.com/post/638426603542708224/mushing-through-the-snow-complete-4141-its-just)
> 
> as always, lemme know what you think! ;_; and happy holidays!!!!!<3


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